Ampakines aim to improve memory and ease suffering

THE GUARDIAN, May 13, 2005

Here is the dream. You haven't slept, your brain has turned to mush, you are lost for words and you are just about to go in to the interview that could change your life. So, you pop a pill. In minutes you feel alert, in command of all your faculties and able to produce the right answers at the right time.

It could one day become a reality. A class of experimental drugs called ampakines could boost glutamate activity and flood the brain with the neurotransmitter that makes learning easy and remembering a doddle. According to New Scientist magazine yesterday, Julia Boyle and colleagues at the University of Surrey tested an ampakine called CX717 on 16 male volunteers aged between 18 and 45.

The volunteers started with a good night's sleep and then were tested for memory, attention, alertness, reaction time and problem solving. Then at 11pm they took their pills and were kept awake the whole night and tested again and again.

At 4am, they were told to go to bed in a dark room but stay awake, while researchers measured heart rate, brainwave activity and so on.

Even the smallest doses of the new drug -- undergoing tests for the California company Cortex -- improved the performance of the sleep-deprived volunteers. The more ampakine they took, the more their cognitive performance improved, and the longer their alertness lasted.

The drug is under consideration as a possible treatment for narcolepsy, jet lag, attention deficit disorder and Alzheimer's disease.